Backlash to Flock cameras is now a bipartisan issue

Hordes of towns and cities are doing the opposite of flocking to a leading surveillance startup. Amid widespread concerns of privacy infringement and dozens of cases of police misuse, many communities have recently canceled their contracts with Flock Safety, a company with 120,000+ license plate readers installed across the US.

What are Flock cameras? AI-equipped devices that can track vehicles from their license plate, make, model, color, and even bumper stickers. The cameras are used by thousands of law enforcement agencies across the US, plus some college campuses and homeowners associations.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police called Flock’s type of technology a “crime-fighting star,” but critics see it as a panopticon ripe for warrantless abuse, based on several recent use cases:

• At least 50 police officers have been accused of misusing Flock’s cameras or similar systems, mostly to stalk women, the Washington Post reported last week.
• Though Flock says it doesn’t work with ICE, some police departments can grant access to immigration agencies. The Columbus, Ohio Flock system, for example, has fielded 15,000+ potential immigration-related searches since 2024, according to audit data that Flock now allows clients to share publicly.
• Cops recently used Flock to arrest a Wisconsin man for marijuana possession after tracking him to and from Michigan, where weed is legal, 404 Media reported.

United in flock skepticism

Vigilantes are reportedly disabling the cameras, and a grassroots group called DeFlock is mapping the devices’ locations.

Apparently heeding concerns of mass surveillance, Amazon-owned Ring canceled its partnership with Flock in February. And more than 70 municipalities—from Los Anglees to small Virginia towns—have stopped working with Flock in recent months amid local outcry, according to the ACLU (though some areas have reportedly just switched to other license plate readers).

It’s a rare moment of bipartisanship. As one Republican commissioner of a North Carolina county told Politico, “We had work boots and Subarus in our parking lot and they were united in their position against the Flock cameras.”—ML